I have some large red oak logs that I am going to have sawn into boards. The guy I hire to saw them comes with a WoodMiser a cuts them on-site. I would like the Oak to be cut so I have as much quarter sawn as possible.
How dose he have to cut the log to have quarter sawn boards?
Replies
Cut it into four pie shaped sections. Then saw them into boards whose width runs perpendicular to the bark. You end up with fewer wide boards, but what you get is more stable.
Don't expect the ray fleck you get in qs white oak, though. Red oak just doesn't have the medullary rays that quarter sawing exposes in white oak.
Perhaps the most beautiful quartersawn wood I've ever seen is sycamore.
Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
Thanks, So I should cut the pieces of the log so that they are like a triangle with a chainsaw first? then load thoes in the bandsaw and cut them.
Anyone have a link to pics of someone doing this. its hard for me to visualize it.
Google the usda forest products lab. I'd bet there's a diagram in the Wood Manual, which is available as a pdf for free.Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
>>Perhaps the most beautiful quartersawn wood I've ever seen is sycamore.
I suppose Sycamore as to good for something!
I'm a tree hugger (of course {G}) but I hate the suckers.
Messy, crappy firewood....
Very hard to split, that's true. But, and this shouldn't surprise you after last week's Age of Aquarius between us, sycamores are about my favorite tree. I love the way their bark mottles. The old ones, and there were several around where I come from in NJ, can have a limb spread of 75 or 100 ft. Kind of the northeast's version of a live oak. I just think they're cool, and the wood when quartersawn has an astounding amount of ray fleck. It's just gorgeous stuff.Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
I liked 'em too until I bought a house with 3 big ones.
I'd starteraking in mid july (bark and those big azzleaves) and would finally finish in Nov.
So, I'll agree: beautiful tree in someone else's yard.
Or felled and 1/4 sawn: http://www.woodfinder.com/woods/sycamore.php
Isn't sycamore classed as a carcinogen?
Forrest
All wood is classed as a carcinogen, to my knowledge.
Life will kill ya.Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
lederbuhr..
If you actually quarter saw the logs you wind up with a whole bunch of narrow as heck boards..
What I would do is plain saw (sometimes called thru and thru) the center of the log . You wind up with quarter sawn wood that way.. The sides which aren't quarter sawn you can take off before you cut the center and after you cut the center out.. Now lay them down and plain saw them you will wind up with bigger wider boards that are quarter sawn and a few narrow boards that aren't .
That is the best approach. Fewer 1/4 sawn, but a LOT more useable wood in better widths.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"Enjoyning the finite of matter, in an infinite realm of possibilities...
You got the right answers.
The question is: what you're making out of this boards?
ycf Dino
Furniture and some rocking horses for gifts. I like the look of quarter sawn better than the oak with the large upside down "v" in the grain.
I know I will have to glue some boards together to make wide ones.
Edited 8/11/2006 9:13 pm ET by Ledebuhr1
I had a Woodmiser for 14 years and have cut a lot of quartersawn. In addition, worked in PNW Old Growth sawmills for a bunch of years.
I would disagree with some of the posts here. To get quality quartersawn of ANY species, you do NOT want to quarter the log up by splitting the heart, as your sawyer, if he has any experience, will tell you.
One of the beauties of the Woodmiser is the ability to rotate the log and, as you cut it up, remove a lot of the internal stresses so you end up with reasonably straight lumber. "Splitting the Heart" in most any sawmill (commercial or part-time) is akin to building a deck with drywall screws.
To get clear quartersawn, which is usually the objective, the sawyer will cut "cants out of the outer portion of the log, just shy of where old knots begin to show, that will produce the clear wood you're after.
From those cants, which are stood on edge to make the board slices perpendicular to the sapwood, the quartersawn, or Vertical grain boards are cut at whatever thickness you desire.
Most trees tend to have one side with deeper clear wood than the other, a function of where they were growing, (orientation to sun, other trees etc.).
The logs that will yield the most clear wood, with minimal stresses will be large logs that have grown within a copse of trees on flat ground and have been sheltered from wind, unstable soil, disease, etc.
Flooring, molding and dimensional lumber(specific widths)
Notchmans way is better.
(I had an LT-40 for few years)
If I was making QS boards to specific widths, (and better quality)
it was much better to cut from the cant's.
For getting the most QS board feet, cutting thru the heart (QS) was better.
For getting some QS and wider PS boards slicing the log (horizontally)
and rotating when the knots was starting to show was ok.
Red oak, I go for plainsawn and select few QS boards.
ycf d
Edited 8/11/2006 9:36 pm ET by dinothecarpenter
How big are the logs?
I expect your sawyer will know how.
here's a couple of links to 'Woodweb' on bandsaw quartersawing -
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Quartersawing_on_a_WoodMizer.html
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/How_to_quartersaw.html